Labour on costs

“Kiwi families have been hit with a triple dose of bad news in the last 24 hours, with petrol prices, power prices and food prices all jumping sharply,” says Labour Leader, David Shearer.

“Just in time for the school holidays, petrol prices went up four cents a litre to $2.26.9 for 91-octane. That’s on top of the July 1 three cent increase courtesy of the Government hiking up petrol tax

Yes petrol prices have gone up – because the dollar has dropped 10% in the last couple of months. Now which party has been saying that the dollar is still far too high and the Govt should intervene to bring it even lower (and hence make petrol more expensive)? You’ve got it – Labour (and Greens and NZ First).

“The latest power price data shows domestic power prices rose by 2.2% in the last three months, which means the average household will pay an extra $50 a year.

No it doesn’t. The electricity CPI was 1366 in Dec 2012 and 1368 in March 2013. That’s an increase of 0.1%, not 2.2%.

“And the cost of food rose by 2.1 per cent in June – 50 per cent faster than in June 2012 and June 2011. In fact, it was the biggest single monthly food price increase since National pushed up GST in October 2010.

Food prices vary greatly month to month. The sound comparison is food prices compared to a year ago as that takes account of seasonal variations. And food prices up just 0.6% higher than a year ago, which is historically a very small increase.

Comments (35)

martinh

We should be used to this now but it still annoys the heck out of me that the only place you will see proper analysis of the lies that politicians tell is on the net. The papers will breathlessly repeat shearers bullshit.

Longknives

I have no problem with high petrol prices, although the government should adopt the Pharmac model and be the sole buyer and distributor of fuel in New Zealand.

Energy prices, gas and electricity, in this country are extortionate to the point of criminality and all aspects of the energy production and distribution networks need to be nationalised and the culprits responsible for overseeing and implementing this particular racket need to be strung up from lampposts with piano wire looped around meat-hooks.

wat dabney

“the government should adopt the Pharmac model and be the sole buyer and distributor of fuel in New Zealand”

Because such an approach worked so well in the Soviet Union, didn’t it.

“Energy prices, gas and electricity, in this country are extortionate to the point of criminality..and and the culprits responsible for overseeing and implementing this particular racket need to be strung up from lampposts with piano wire looped around meat-hooks.”

That would be members of the last Labour government then, who ran an abusive monopoly and artificially increased prices as a regressive tax mechanism; National for not undoing their crimes; and the Greens for planning to impose still vastly higher costs with their renewables nightmare.

nasska

….”Typically, around 45% of the pump price is the actual cost of refined petrol and another 45% is tax i.e. 64.13 cents per litre in fixed excise, plus the Emissions Trading Scheme levy (approximately 1c/l) and GST “….

Don’t hold your breath waiting for anything other than placating words….fuel taxes are a nice little earner & no government, of any hue, is going to cut its own income.

bhudson

thedavincimode

Gee, why is the price of lettuces higher in July? Why does flying capsicum in from Holland or asparagus from the US cost more than when grown here in season?

Labia’s campaign strategy for this year seems clear. They have escalated their propensity for bullshit into a full-blown campaign of gross bare-faced lies. Next year they’ll be adding the lolly scramble into the mix. Their trick will be selling this on the basis of the recovering economy without admitting that the economy is recovering. The default tactic of dipping into the bullshit bin will inevitably be adopted.

It will be interesting to see how MSM deal with this and in particular, TV3 who seem to be going a bit dog on them relative to the previous cosy relationship of joint propoganda merchants.

thedavincimode

dishy

If Mr Shearer wants to pretend to be staunch and “relevant”, and divert attention from his palpable weakness and ineptitude, perhaps he should get himself a tattoo. “Helen Clark’s a dud root” would be a vote-winner.

tvb

Petro prices are high because of 3 taxes. ACC GST and excise to pay for roading. ACC should be coming down as that scheme is back in the black and cars are safer etc. Excise I accept as the fairest way to pay for roads and GST I resent. But all the opposition parties were wanting to print money to bring the dollar down. Well they got their wish the dollar has declined 10% with more to come. But fuel costs are still cheaper than Europe.

Viking2

dime (6,679) Says:
July 13th, 2013 at 11:32 am

If the US had our petrol prices it would send the world into recession.

It’s amazing how much we get fucked with.

Imagine if petrol was a buck a liter and our house prices were half of what they are.
—————————-
dime,
the yankee highway system is at the point of collpse thru lack of spending on the infrastructure. They are going to have to face it sooner rather than later. Thousands of bridges,canals, roads that were built 100 years or more ago and are past there useby life.
Railways here have the same issue.

Manolo

kiwi in america

Viking2
You’ve obviously not seen the price of petrol in Europe. Take off all the ETS and crazy environmentally driven tax hikes that Labour and National have imposed on motorists and New Zealanders’ would have pretty reasonably priced petrol by world standards.

You are clueless on the roading network in the US. If there is one benefit to come from Obama’s boondoggle of the stimulus its the huge amount of upgrade, widening and resurfacing of the interstate freeway system that has been done over the last few years right across the US. My NZ business partner and I run a charitable programme for at risk Polynesian youth by bringing young men up from NZ to play high school rugby here right after they finish Year 13 in NZ. At the end of their time me or our US based kiwi mentors take these young guys on a 2 week trip across the US – I’ve clocked up 11,000 kms for 5 years in a row now and I can tell your assertion about the system on the point of collapse is bollocks.

Yoza
Russia (and the Soviet Union before it) is richly blessed with vast oil and gas reserves. The Soviet Union that you love so much was unable to make reliable cars available to the masses despite this energy abundance – unlike the US and Canada who throughout the time of the Soviet Union’s existence had an economic system that meant car ownership grew and grew and became more and more accessible to the poor. The poor in Russia had to make do with bikes, buses and maybe trains. Stringing up opponents with piano wire, as you suggested, was a time honoured way for Communists to deal with opposition. In fact Stalin took care of 50 million of such opponents by killing them. The hard left always sweeps Stalin’s purges, gulags, scorched earth and starving peasants under a large carpet.

OneTrack

“Petrol prices are pretty obscene

True, but unless Labour pledge to remove a whole lot of tax of the price when elected, then isn’t much they can do about it either.”

Labour wont do any thing about it. Their coalition “partner” will be implementing a few petrol tax increases of their own. ETS or maybe they are up for a full-blown carbon tax by now. Gaia must be saved and no warming for seventeen years isn’t going to stop them now.

chris

Labour wont do any thing about it. Their coalition “partner” will be implementing a few petrol tax increases of their own. ETS or maybe they are up for a full-blown carbon tax by now. Gaia must be saved and no warming for seventeen years isn’t going to stop them now.

Which is why it’s all political bluster by Shearer. He’ll moan about it when they’re in opposition in attempt to make people think it’s somehow all National’s fault, yet increase fuel prices by taxing more when in power. Meanwhile, National do the same by adding more and more tax on fuel.

adze

The Pharmac model does not monopolise the importation and supply of a commodity. It provides a government subsidy for a selected schedule of medicines based on a strict budget, negotiates prices for those medicines, and makes recommendations on their use. There are many medicines that are not subsidised but they are still available in the NZ market.

Ed Snack

Perhaps DPF is being a bit misleading about power prices; that index is about overall power costs including that to bulk users. End user consumers on the other hand are seeing increases well in excess of inflation. However at least some of that is to fund increases in spending by Transpower due to a backlog of spending on the grid.